He takes a deadend job in some trench valley town selling tickets at their pissant theater. It’s a wretched building, windowless and dust beaten, befitting of the unpaved parking lot and backed in against bedrock. Inside, there’s an electric green undertone from paint eras past. A wasp nest lodges high above the smoke pit despite a persistent biting wind.
His rigorous education has earned him better than a crummy position like this, but he can’t make it to the capital without paychecks in the bank, so he’ll be here until about the snow melt, mopping soda and counting the days. It’s still the ugly side of summer. Weeds scratch pinstripes on his car and a sickly stench outpours from the dumpster.
Whenever the popcorn machine burns his hands, which is often, rather than attempt to cool himself with the puffy washroom faucets he runs to the low-ceilinged basement for the utility sink that blasts crystal freezing water. On his phone, friends and other graduates are breezing into placements. He pictures cafe breakfast in the city as he’s pouring cereal for dinner.
During breaks, he kicks back in a plastic chair and searches for any company that gives a relocation bonus. His coworkers chat highschool drama, some of it years stale, or mush about dead grandmothers everyone knew. None of them know much about the state school he attended just an hour away, but that does not surprise him; anyone with a ticket out of town has already cashed it, he’s certain. He stays friendly but doesn’t make friends, knowing he would roll off the tight-knit town like an oil droplet.
There’s another like him who keeps to herself, thumbing through the crusty magazines and eating baby carrots while younger employees debate which actors are hot. Her jet black hair sways.
As the season closes a draft sweeps under the main door, hustling sand across the tiles. He tries to mop the streaks and creates a slick, spreading mud. From then on he sweeps, which sometimes rises an itchy cloud that hangs until the croaking HVAC system can filter it. He begins shaking out his hair before getting in the car.
Working here is easier than his program was, but something about it grates on his nerves so much harder. His apartment reeks of popcorn grease. The days pass like flying birds, disorienting him and inspiring jealousy of the happy guests.
No one remembers when the woman, who, like him, keeps to herself, began working. She’s the lead projectionist, and with only four theaters usually manages entirely alone. He begins listening for her footsteps overhead. Sometimes he waves to the projector window, knowing there’s some chance of her watching. If his presence has even registered to her, she hasn’t made him aware of it. He gets baby carrots and finds them more refreshing than the vending machine candy. One late night after all the showings, he finishes his tasks and goes up the stairs and stops himself, hand raised to knock. He goes home, leaving just one green car in the parking lot.
The green car is omnipresent, there when he arrives and when he leaves. So he arrives earlier and does manage to catch her driving in. Playing nonchalant, he hides away spot cleaning one of the theaters.
An impossibly loud train horn suddenly blasts his eardrums, and he screams. In the break room, neither of them talk about it.
One night he stays late, making an excuse of sorting the poster closet. When he ventures out, there’s a film playing in one of the theaters. He goes home contented, feeling that the theater has been in some small way redeemed if she has made it a special place for herself. He mops soda and makes change for candies, and he listens for her footsteps overhead, which pace or rush when the reels need swapping. He irons his work uniform, and he almost pulls out the scented hair gel he hasn’t touched since high school, but wearing that would mean admitting something to himself every time he glanced in the mirror.
She reflects his passion like a silver screen, resolutely unmoved, seemingly oblivious to his mortifying preening and growing obsession.
He imagines movies nights with her in the big theater and racing down the canyon highway, chasing her green car out onto the plateau, the road a creamsicle orange, the clouds spinning like plates, and her laughter bouncing. She smiles at him in the break room as he’s reading the post beneath a friend’s first day at work elevator selfie, and he waves acknowledgment.
His coworker drops a fresh stack of thrift store magazines on the table. From the corner, he watches everyone else celebrate having something new to dull their boredom. The wasps sting him twice in one day.
Soon the schedule and rhythm of the job is like a cage of iron bands tightening around his chest. The monotony, endless re-cleaning of the same surfaces, and repetitive conversations about the same handful of movies have him wondering if the man he was at school truly existed. The days feel solved, with only where exactly the grit blown in on foul winds shall land still in question. The paycheck hits feel like moonsteps apart.
Some of his old classmates meet up and his dry phone buzzes anxiously when they realize his absence. He tells them he’ll be there soon.
He brings home a poster, a monster horror picture, the strange star creature rising from his swamp, wet hand wrapped around a woman’s fishnetted ankle, and sharpies a thermometer bulb on top. Scribbling what he’s scrounged, the temperature barely rises above the muck.
He refreshes his resume and profiles, plans what haircut he’ll get before interviews, and rereads notes from school, quizzing himself on old flash cards and feeling awkward whenever he fails. He’s pictured himself in a certain role since elementary—heating leftover rice in his rental’s blue kitchen, barely stocked with soy sauce packets and a salt shaker, he considers for the first time that his career might not work out as he imagined.
To his shame, the thought drags through his nightmares and into the morning. Tearing tickets he wonders if he’ll be like the projectionist and eventually find small respites and distractions in an otherwise miserable existence, fighting an ever encroaching sand and stickiness so that first dates can paw each other in humid darkness. He imagines the movie of his life ending here, at an endless repetition. Maybe the film would scratch and he’d be caught in the same instant of a gesture for eternity.
An old professor gets him an interview with a startup. The video interview goes well, but helping him move is out of the question. They send him some remote assignments, he completes them, and then they ghost. He considers telling the professor but doesn’t want to be seen failing, so accepts that they wasted a couple weeks of his energy. He tells himself it was interview practice, at least, and wonders mirthfully how long the company will last.
“Are you mad about something?”
He almost chokes in surprise. She’s leaving the break room but turned, just to speak to him.
“Not really,” he says. Her eyes are deep as the space between stars.
“Oh,” she says. And she goes.
He checks his face in the bathroom. It’s not like he’s scowling.
The rest of the day, he checks himself in the moist streaks as he’s cleaning. Of course he’s angry, but he can’t tell that from looking at himself. Maybe all the movies have given her brain a circuit that he’s missing.
If she can tell when he’s angry, what has she thought of him so far? He can’t guess what she thinks when he isn’t sure what he feels.
The bulb’s temperature has reached the monster’s pert nipples, glistening and manly. Snow is in the forecast, and his network in the city says positive things about his new resume.
It’s a beautiful sunset, and reflected by green paint it creates a gorgeous wash of colours. He isn’t sure why he stopped beside her car, which has grocery bags in the back seat and a window rolled down. He considers leaving his number on the windshield.
On a day off he has a solo movie night, drinking and calling up friends as his childhood favourites play at the barest volume.
He supposes it was the last era of his life with time for movies. A bit embarrassed seeing some of them now, he resolves to find some new favourites. The poster room is an obvious place to start, with thousands upon thousands of options. He feels like he’s wading through an ancient dune, riffling through posters from decades past, holding his shirt over his mouth as the dust plumes.
He watches a movie with dinner every night. Most of them can’t hold his attention, but occasionally a scene or a certain performance arrests him to his chair, eyes fixed, unblinking.
None of the movies spark his passion quite like the cheesy classics he memorized while learning to crawl, but the dream of a perfect moving image begins to intoxicate him. He frames the canyon walls with his fingers and appreciates the gloom of freezing rains for their heavy presence and the brief flush of green they bring.
The angle of the sun shifts, and all of a sudden the days are very short and cold. The main door’s draft reverses flow, and now there is always a sense of loss, like the air in his lungs is being sucked away.
Winter brings a stiff misery to the valley. The floors are perpetually streaked with boot prints, and everyone is sniffling. He cleans twice as frequently and still feels a grunge worming into the building. The vents blow scratchy air.
The projectionist is hardly seen, choosing to eat alone in the warm loft rather than sit in the breakroom wearing a coat like the rest of them. The crowds are thinner, the movies on show are less impressive, and the highschool workers slowly drop off as the extremely relative rush season ends. He prints business cards and feels a bit silly.
They’re for the city, but he tucks one on her windshield. She doesn’t call. He asks management if she takes time off during the holidays and they can’t recall the last time she was off for any reason, even illness.
He imagines buying two tickets for the city and leaving one tucked on her windshield just the same as the business card. It’s a silly idea. Who would get on a mysterious one-way flight? But there is truth to it, he supposes, which is that his sweetest memory of this dustbin valley will be her, and watching her from afar.
He spends his evenings reviewing notes from school and dreaming not of city debut, but of the quiet confidence he expects will come after a decade of life there. Desperately he wants to skip to a time when his efforts are reflected by the world surrounding him. He wants eggs Benedict on rye bread and an avocado side. The one grocer in town sells tinned tomatoes and expired pasta.
The action flick they’ve been showing for a month has scenes that rumble the building. Fine flecks of dust detach from the ceiling tiles and fall as a crisp dead snow. It’s frigid outside but he goes to the smoking pit anyway, as often as he can excuse it, just to breathe clean air.
Wind funnels between the blasted rock and the theater against it, so to avoid being jet cooled he presses himself against the wall, like another sickly shrub in the row. Garbage blows through the narrow alley, and grits of ice. He tucks his chin against his chest and closes his eyes, waiting for the timer in his pocket to go off.
“Is this your business card?” she asks. He pops his eyes open and there she is, fingerless red gloved hand in his face.
“Yeah. Yes.” He stands straighter.
“Why did you leave it on my car?” she asks. He looks to her eyes for answers and feels a rush, like he’s lost his feet.
“You didn’t call,” he says. She accepts that and steps away, putting the business card back in her pocket.
“If I called,” she supposes, “what would happen.”
“Whatever you wanted,” he says. He scrubs his face with his palms. “Whatever you liked.”
She’s smiling. “What I like?”
“I don’t know,” he says.
Grinning, “think I like you?” she accuses.
“Yeah,” he says.
She laughs in his face and walks away, punctuated by the metal door swinging open and shut. He’s frozen in the howling wind before giggles overcome him. For the rest of the day he works to hide a smirk, certain of nothing but her curiosity yet enourmously hopeful. He replays their conversation in his mind, trying to remember exactly what she said and tractionlessly pondering the meanings. Is she going to call him, then?
He keeps the phone with him all night and forgives it’s persistent silence. He almost revels in the bubble of mystery, guessing at what she wants.
He can’t say he wants her to call—of course he wants to speak with her, hear her voice, and fold more syrup coated words into his memories—but in the anticipation his crush flourishes. He imagines a wide bed with two nightstands, a perky dog sat between their feet, and subway rides with her head on his shoulder. He bakes a honey crusted cake his grandmother taught him and leaves it on the green car. Humming into work, he clears the counters, wipes the floors, and gets the first showing to their seats before skipping to the projector room.
She opens the door and doesn’t seem surprised.
“Shoes off,” she says, taking his wrist. He leaves his boots with hers and follows inside, past the reel machines, to a cozy den behind a curtain, and feels they have suddenly entered her bedroom.
She pulls him closer, guiding his hand to her hip. He grabs her chin and kisses her. She presses against him and they both fall back onto a low, downy couch; she straddles his lap. He peppers her face with kisses even as he’s tossing her off, both laughing.
“Work!” he says, walking out, his hands trembling.
He sits in his idling car after work, warming his hands on the vents and listening to the radio. Hours after the last showing ended, she walks out to her car, bundled in a puffer jacket and watching him. He gets out and meets her halfway, the downy flakes like starspecks on her hair.
“Lets go for dinner,” he says.
“I don’t date at work,” she says.
“I didn’t say a date I said—”
“I don’t date coworkers,” she repeats.
He’s baffled. “So, what? So—” gesturing up at the loft “—isn’t dating?”
They’ve reached her car. She is not smiling.
“We can have sex,” she says, maintaining eye contact. He steps back and covers his face.
“I actually like you,” he says.
She speaks like birds on a wire, sharply articulated and vastly above him. “I wouldn’t have sex with a guy who didn’t like me.”
“I made you a cake,” he says, pointing at it. Her eyes go wide, and she picks it up like it might explode.
“Thank you,” she says, twisting the container like a puzzle piece.
“Don’t throw it out,” he says.
She stops. “Thank you,” she says, meaning it more this time.
“Goodnight,” he says, already skittering off.
It makes no sense to him that sneaking away on shift is something she’s comfortable with, but grabbing takeout and parking at a lookout goes too far. It’s not like he’s going to drag her into gossip with the rest of the staff—he’s practically a ghost himself, performing his tasks like they’re a cursed and ancient rut. Management wouldn’t care. Does she date at all, he wonders. Her schedule at the theater doesn’t leave a lot of time for an outside life but she’s so stunningly beautiful, he can’t imagine no one has courted her before.
He wonders how many times she’s slept with someone in the projector room. He didn’t get a good look—was the candy bowl full of condoms? Did she have lingerie spilling from a chest?
At the end of late night shifts, after everyone else has left, when there are two cars in the parking lot and sparkling theaters ready for the next day of guests, he finds himself pacing under pacing footsteps, eyes half lidded, remembering the scent of her face when he kissed her.
Anyone can kiss her—he wants to raise her from this trench like a diamond.
She wears a letterman jacket from her old highschool to work and any semblance of his chalance is quashed flat as he digs through the internet for any scrap of her. Face hot and heart racing, by lunch he’s found her class graduation photo, and through that her full name and family history. He could say it puts them on level ground, as she’s known who he is for weeks now, but he knows she didn’t mean to reveal anything. Despite a nagging shame he reads through posts from the last time she was active, more than a decade prior.
He’s surprised to see she made short films throughout high school, shooting her friends in closet costumes outside drab downtown buildings, and sometimes acting small roles herself. Giddy, he watches a teenage version of the woman he’s known flip her hair and belt narration. Maybe in the city she would become an actress, or a director.
Knowing he won’t be able to hide this without acting weird, he sneaks up to her room and turns up the volume, holding his phone’s speaker to the gap under the door until it swings open.
“Private showing on the big screen?” he asks, punching away the pillow that she throws at his head. It tumbles down the stairs.
“No dates,” she says, joke donkey kicking at the center of his chest, then kicking again with intention. He backs off in time, clinging to the railing and beaming despite himself. He races to retrieve her pillow, dusting it off. She points towards the back of the room. “Busy?”
“No,” he says, getting back to the top of the staircase. She tilts her face but is smiling too broadly for him to kiss, so he pecks her cheek while shoving her back with the pillow.
He’s offered a perfect job. It’s decent pay, great mentorship, and an excellent line on his resume, and it won’t start for a few months but that gives him time to prepare. According to the hiring manager he’s one of the best candidates they’ve interviewed recently, with especially strong professor recommendations. He’s eventually flattered into revealing what he’s been doing for money during the gap year, and the hiring manager laughs, disbelieving.
“Not where someone like you belongs,” the hiring manager asserts.
“No, not at all, I agree,” he says, unsure.
“Life gets better now,” the hiring manager says kindly.
Snow comes down in roaring plumes, burying the landscape. He excavates her car after his shift, then lies on the hood, enjoying the mystical quiet and full moon beams shining through his eyelids.
Long after a sleepiness has set in, her crunching footsteps squeak closer. He stays relaxed, his eyes closed, as she opens the driver’s side door and starts the engine.
“You’re still snowed in,” she says. He nods. “I’ll drive you home.”
“Thanks,” he says, sliding off her car.
“You’re supposed to say no thank you,” she says.
“No, thank you!” he says, getting into the passenger seat.
She knows where he’s staying as soon as he describes the building. They drive in silence, aside from her muttering as she fiddles with the heater controls. Her eyelashes are so long they seem to flutter when she blinks.
“You could be an actress,” he says. She scoffs. “I’m serious,” he says.
“Oh really,” she says.
“You could be.”
“I could be anything,” she says, “but I am who I am.”
“Or a director,” he agrees. She tilts her face away. “Or—anything.”
“Sure,” she says, but he can tell she’s upset.
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
She drops him off.
As her taillights fade, his questions are frameless. There are no words, just the ache of misunderstanding. He burns a DVD of her discography and slips it under the projection room door.
She finds him halfway through his shift, rageful.
“Stay out of it,” she says, taking the mop out of his hand as he steps back intimidated. She flicks the handle at him with every word. “Stop it. Stop.”
“Okay,” he says, brushing down his uniform polo. “Stop what?”
She throws the handle at him and it bounces against his chest.
“I am not going to let you hurt me,” she says, and leaves abruptly. He tastes the acrid salt of tears and wipes his face.
The coldest week of the year he avoids her entirely, scraping into his shift at the last moment and leaving well before her private showings wrap. Their roles are completely separate, so the separation is complete; even her footsteps overhead seem to vanish from his dulled perception.
Counting dollars on his poster, the thermometer is about to overflow. He scopes out chic apartments in the city and starts calling up his school friends, letting them know to expect him.
Then she reappears, waiting as he arrives to his regular parking spot. Their conversation while walking to the theater is mundane, as if they’re caught in line at the grocery store. She doesn’t explain herself, and he still doesn’t know what to ask. At the front counter they split, but she graces him with a peck on the cheek, and it keeps him warm all day.
At the end of his shift he goes upstairs, feeling sheepishly hopeful. She kisses him deeply at the threshold, taking advantage of the step to stand level. She holds his jaw and breathes in, pulling his body against hers. He follows her through the doorway and chases her in the kiss as they stumble for the couch. She takes off her shirt in one graceful motion, revealing nothing underneath. As he’s taking her in she twirls, watching his reaction closely. She pouts.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, and she laughs. He catches her hip and takes a handful of her hair, arching her open and off balance. Her laugh cuts off, eyes glazed shining as her lips part. “Good?”
She nods desperately, breathing heavy, and he straightens her to toss her back on the couch.
He unbuckles as she takes off her pants, then her panties, spreading herself at him with a keen, vulnerable look in her eyes. Getting hard, he wets his fingers in her mouth as she moans softly. He kneads her clit, wraps from the conspicuous pile on the table, and bends her legs wide at the hip. She’s wet; when he slips his fingers inside of her, she’s soaking, and she cries out and presses down on him. He replaces his fingers with his tip, and she’s sputtering, clawing at his hips, blinking hot tears and wrapping her legs around him.
She taps his cheek and he bends to kiss her, filling her slowly, smiling as she gasps and clings to his neck, hugging and levering heavy into his thrust. She goes quiet, her fingers drowsily intertwining with the hair at his nape. Their foreheads brush as he moves over her; he kisses her skin whenever it meets his lips. She warbles out his name and he comes immediately. She laughs.
“That was nice,” she says. He pulls out and sticks his head between her legs and she shrieks, grabbing the back of his head and guiding him to pleasure herself.
Her wet is dripping off his chin.
“I want to get dinner,” he says, stretching and fucking her with his fingers. She smiles. Her hair is spread on the couch like a slick of flowing water.
“No dates,” she whispers, her eyes twinkling. He leans to kiss her, and she catches him with a breathy moan, biting him closer when he pulls away but only giving short kisses to the corners of his mouth as he hovers over her.
“Please?” he asks. She laughs, airless. He pesters on. “Please? Please come for me and let me buy you dinner, please.”
Her eyelids seem heavy. She rests a hand on his chest, her bottom lip flushed and trembling.
“Please, please would you come for me?” he asks.
Her head lolls to the side, and her forehead tightens. He massages the tension with his thumb, and she looks at him dumbfounded. He smiles. She surrenders to it like an ocean wave is crashing across her back, rolling into him and convulsing hard. Utterly elated, he holds her until she goes still, then stretches her out and throws a blanket across her hips. He finds a sink to refill the nearest coffee cup.
She’s rolling her nipples when he returns, eyes still hazy and cheeks puffed.
“I’ll drive you home,” he says, picking up her shirt and flipping it rightside out. She tracks the movement of his arms, nodding. He dives into her for a kiss, and she melts, letting him deepen the kiss. He’s already getting hard again.
They bundle up and waddle to his car. She takes his elbow when he offers it, even nuzzling against his shoulder.
Her place, half an aging duplex, is just a couple blocks away. He walks her to the door, ornamented by a homemade wreath.
“I’ll drive you in tomorrow,” he says.
She seems to find that funny. “It’s so close,” she says.
“It’s cold,” he says, swatting for her to hurry up and open the door.
“You’re not coming in,” she says, turning the deadbolt.
“And you’re not walking. Goodnight.” He kisses away her protest and pushes her inside, closing the door and the argument.
He brings her fresh scones and scrambled eggs, fried bacon, cut apples, and spiced tea. She appraises the lunch bag and says, “thank you.”
They don’t kiss walking into the theater, but she hugs the breakfast against her chest.
“Maybe we could get dinner,” she says. “If you’re really leaving soon?”
He balks. “Yeah, like, a month, probably—yes, yes, I—dinner sounds amazing.”
She laughs from deep in her belly and disappears into the loft.
Actually making plans for her, he gets slick palms and a rashy neck. The stakes seem astronomical, but he supposes that’s because they’ll have so few experiences to remember each other by. He wants it to be special.
“I think we should eat here,” he says, talking through the door.
“Okay.”
“But can you pick the movie?”
She laughs, and her shadow leaves.
He takes a walk by the creek. It’s one of the only locations in town that doesn’t feel completely arid and lifeless, but midwinter it’s locked under ice. He crunches along the streambank, smoking a cigar, which he rarely does, and contemplates the sky as it’s framed by tree branches. There’s a great hush upon the landscape, and little aside from birds to distract his lonely meditation.
He feels as though time is slipping out of him, being sucked into the environment as readily as heat. Each day which passes where he does not kiss her weighs on his heart like iron bars. He feels that she is fencing him away emotionally, like a nuisance animal.
He gets an icecream because it’s one of the only things on offer at the strip mall, and immediately feels silly walking out into the cold. He eats it anyway, shivering and tightening his coat.
He goes back to his apartment and hangs his hat; he paces the carpet and empties the dishwasher. He irons his shirts. He prepares his lunch. It all feels so toy and silly—like he could just stop, and no one would really care or notice, not even himself. Especially himself, maybe. This year has made him a ghost. He’s been uprooted too many times too quickly; he doesn’t recognize the man in the mirror, but he also can’t remember the person he used to see. It’s like his eyes have grown an onion skin of self-deception and delusion.
He can’t lose hope, but he doesn’t feel that’s what’s happened. It’s like his motivation to put one foot in front of the other has flagged.
He’s never lost his sense of direction before; it’s disconcerting, and it leaves him with much to consider in the lonesome hours of dawn.
Between waves of sniffling moviegoers, he studies on his phone, refreshing the notes from school that would be helpful with his new job. He keeps a notepad and writes questions to send to his favourite professor, and feels more professional by the minute. He knows he can do this, he just needs to stay out of his own way and not dig mental traps for himself. He will look back on this bout of insecurity and laugh, he is certain—and because he is certain, he can laugh as he rips tickets and bags popcorn. The time will pass quickly.
He considers it and buys a bottle of rum to mark and celebrate the occasion. He pours a glass for himself under the flickering florescent kitchen light and sips after clinking with the empty air. He’s late compared to his peers, but he hasn’t fallen completely out of the race—there’s a space for him. Maybe not waiting, but ready for him to push open.
He deep cleans the whole apartment, figuring that’s one of the first steps in moving. He donates some stuff he’s sure he won’t want, mostly outdated textbooks and ill-fitting clothes he hasn’t touched since highschool.
Freed from a sense that the theater will claw his life still beating from his chest, he is happier at work, less critical of himself for doing the work, and friendlier with guests. He’s vaguely embarrassed for having felt so defeated earlier in the year, but resolves that no one noticed.
One of his winter tasks is knocking down the icicles that form above the door. The biggest ones could kill anyone walking into the building; it gives him a satisfaction knowing that he has made the space safer, even if it otherwise would have just been someone else’s job.
He’s developed the mental endurance to watch an entire feature length film in one sitting. It’s almost pleasant, letting the pictures wash over him as his mind drifts as bubbles, catching on the ceiling’s edges. During quiet scenes he soaks up the colours, feeling parched of something vital they restore.
He watches old movies and bad movies, Soviet animations, and clay pigeons flying in an endless, nauseating montage. No picture gives an answer; only questions, endlessly layering as the shot rolls, accumulating a chorus of reaching hands, rising a lyric of attention crafted by ten thousand efforts of the heart.
At least he won’t look foolish tomorrow, fidgeting in his seat and bemoaning that they won’t just get to the point.
He fills his shopping list and takes a good shower before cooking until midnight. He sprays a weak cologne on his work shirt and hangs it above the open, steaming kettle, stretching out the wrinkles. He flosses before bed, a true sign of nerves.
He wants it to be special. He wants her to have a special time, and to remember him long after he has gone, so that his time here can have a meaning beyond it’s passage.
Title credits play for the very same swamp creature flick as he stole the poster for, and he slaps his knee.
“No way,” he says, mildly embarrassed.
“Did you think you could get away with that?” she asks, clearly joking. She’s ignoring the screen entirely, plating up from the small buffet—roast lamb, potato wedges, caprese salad, garden pickles, and two flavours of cupcake, poppyseed lemon and ginger carrot. In the middle aisle of the theater he’s set up a folding table, with beeswax candles and an unused tablecloth his grandmother gifted him years ago.
“Getting away with…” he says, straigtening the fries on her plate. Creepy sloshing begins to play as they pan onto the swamp.
She gets up and down all movie, telling him how they do certain effects while pacing the stairs. He mostly watches her—watches her throat move when she swallows, watches her smiling back at him. Together in the crystal calm of winter’s night, the moon unseen but glowing and snow bales hugging their parked cars, he wishes he could stop time, and be always listening to her as she traces the fake blood tubes across a shot.
“You know so much,” he says, and she scratches her head.
The movie ends, the creature retreated to slimy waters. Packing the table, he asks, “Why don’t you make movies any more?”
She’s behind him, so he can’t see the reaction. “It takes a team.”
“I could help,” he says.
“Be my best boy?” she asks. He turns. “It’s a job,” she explains.
“You’re so talented,” he says. “And you’re like—here.” Her face puckers. “But, I don’t know why, when you’re—uh, sorry. Are you mad?”
“You can tell?”
“But—why?”
Her eyes widen. “Why? This wasn’t a date, I don’t have to answer that.”
He’s caught between wanting to take back what he’s said and pressing the issue. She decides for him, storming out of the showing room before he can say anything.
He returns furniture to the breakroom and packs food for her to take home, then gingerly creeps up her staircase. The door is open, and she’s hustling in the back den, tidying up and shirtless. She startles when she spots him.
“Are we having sex?” she asks, and he sputters. He holds up the food, almost like a shield.
“Not tonight?” he says.
She accepts the meal and cups his cheek.
“Dont confuse yourself,” she says.
“Sure,” he says, and kisses her.
The next day they don’t happen to see each other; nor the day after that. He soon suspects she is avoiding him on purpose. He rewatches her shorts, adoring especially when the camera films from her height, and feels some connection to her. He writes an apology note but rips it, unsure how to apologize for an insult he cast without understanding. He sits by her car at night for so long that he realizes she’s checking that he’s gone from inside the lobby and bolts away, deeply embarrased.
The angle of the sun creaks slowly, scraping new ridges of the valley every day. The snow will melt and all his chances with it. He begins packing and gets a writhing sickness in his gut every time he tapes a box closed.
She relieves him on a quiet day, coming down to the lobby and leaning on his counter. He reaches across the table and grabs her hands, clutches them tightly and bows his head, rubbing his forehead to her knuckles. She frees one of her hands and pets him, gently lifting and dropping his hair, her touch soft.
“It was a great time with you,” she says. He squeezes a wordless emotion into her fingers. “Did you… You asked me, why I don’t make stuff any more.” She squeezes back. “It’s a long story. And, honestly, I barely remember. But you—” she says, wiggling his hands, “—are just one more person who—who might—I don’t know.” She is breathless. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he says, awkwardly hugging her, the counter between them. Without letting go he crawls over and pulls her tighter, feeling her ankles lift off the floor. She exhales against his chest.
“Goodbye,” she says, gripping him tightly. He hugs her fiercely.
“No, I don’t want that,” he says.
“Mhmm,” she says.
“No,” he says, shaking her to emphasize his resolve.
The next day he arrives before her and leaves breakfast on the top step. She storms down and tells him not to do that. He does it again every day, content enough that it motivates her to find him for a shout. He takes it without arguing and apologizes every time. She weedles him for why he won’t stop doing it and he can’t find an answer for either of them.
Then suddenly she cracks, and instead of descending on him with a rage, she is sobbing. Guilt burns him like fire as she points a finger in his face and says restraining order.
“Oh woah woah I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he interrupts, horrified at himself. “Sorry please—I will—”
“No I said I had to get one before, you’re not even listening,” she says. “I had to get one before. He wouldn’t leave me alone, then he started working here.”
“What? Sorry, I—”
“He was leaving pornos at my door and kept saying he wanted to make them with me.”
“Who? What, who?”
“The guy who—I made movies with.”
“But he’s gone?”
“He’s gone.”
“He worked here?”
“Yes, we—”
“Okay, I understand.”
“No you don’t! You—”
He startles. “You’re right, I don’t, but, I get it, I’ll stop leaving food and—”
“I didn’t say that!” She claps her hands in his face. “Put it in my breakroom cubby if you want to, and I’ll check there.” He nods rapidly.
“I am so sorry,” he says.
She wipes her cheeks, turning away. “It’s fine.”
“No, I’m—I am really sorry,” he says. “Can I hug you?”
She opens her arms. He scoops her up and carries her to the loft, past the hot and spinning reel machines, setting her down in the biggest, comfiest chair, beside a stack of film theory textbooks on the floor. He kisses her softly, insistantly, and she scratches her fingertips against his stubble.
“Come with me,” he says. She laughs. “Please, come with me.”
“Stay here,” she drawls, pulling him closer by his shirt.
“I can’t,” he says.
She gasps, playful. “Then neither can I.”
He feels himself about to cry and turns.
“Don’t be a stranger!” she calls as he walks out, eyes burning.
He searches for the details on his own, asking a few investigative questions to the oldest employees. No one still on staff was working at the time, but the rumours are their friend group sided with him and his nicer camera. Her life was fractured; he terrorized her at work, poisoned her friendships, and even circulated bedroom pictures. His consequence was a stern warning to leave her alone. A decade later and she is still anxious for anyone to branch across segments of her life.
He leaves breakfast in her cubby and she visit him, smiling.
“Thank you,” she says.
He wants to throw himself through her and the past, to reef against and repel the forces that have stung and throttled her. Instead he says, achingly, “I want to cook for you every day.” She giggles maniacally and walks away, dragging her heels and swinging her hair.
He wants to cook for her, and carry her, and taste her, and know her. He leaves three business cards on her windshield, and she finally calls.
“What?” she asks as he picks up.
“You never texted!” he says.
“Text you what,” she says, and hangs up. His phone pings quickly.
There.
She leaves his number unblocked and he texts her continuously, detailing the particulars of long and mundane shifts, and dramatizing the minor downstairs occurences she is always missing in the projector room. She barely responds, mostly reacting with emojis and occasionaly a word or two.
When his phone buzzes he pulls it out gleefully, but finds that most of the notifications are still from his onboarding manager in the city, so he sets it up that her notification tones are special. He makes her a scale of chimes, and every time it rings he practically jumps to read her message.
Do you still want to get dinner? she’s asked.
He trembles typing the reply. “Yes,” he says aloud, “please.” And send.
She dresses up. He isn’t expecting it, and feels instantly mortified in his work polo. She twirls for him, skipping to his car. “You look so good,” he says. “I’m sorry, I—”
“So do you,” she says, cutting him off with a kiss.
Everywhere in town is closed, so they drive an hour to the nearest all day diner. She skips the playlist incessantly, talks about nothing, and sometimes rolls her window down to catch snowflakes on the wind.
He holds her thigh and listens rapt as she ties the area together—all the places she’s been, all the people she’s known.
“I’m glad we did this,” she says, dunking her fries in his strawberry milkshake.
“Yeah,” he says, playing footsie with her boots.
“You are really really sweet,” she admits, regretfully.
“We don’t have to do that,” he says, tucking his head.
He drives her home and kisses her passionately on the porchstep, pulling her waist against his and feeling a growl in his chest. She pushes her tongue into his mouth, resting her weight in his arms.
“Come inside?” she asks.
Her bedroom is painted a deep, eternal blue, with quartz accents. She strips for him playfully, peeling layers of silk and mesh. With the door cracked and light coming in from the hallway, it’s just moody enough that she doesn’t notice he’s crying until her hands cup his cheeks. He hadn’t noticed, either. She freezes, and he tenses up.
“Why are you crying?” she asks. He breaks, grabs her ribcage and pulls her in, kissing her sternum. He hides his face against her chest as she stokes his back. “You’re—you’re okay,” she says, patting him.
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” he mumbles, dragging her half nude into the bed and enveloping her, folding her as she squirms for air, squashing her wild thrashing with the safety of his arms. She writhes against him, mindblowingly soft and hissing, humorously vitriolic.
“You’ve done this to yourself,” she says.
“I want to cook for you every day,” he says, holding her jaw and planting kisses on her cheek.
“You do,” she says, voice silky.
“I’m leaving,” he says.
She nuzzles his throat. “You don’t have to,” she reminds him, and he chokes up. He shrugs. She shrugs.
He’s considered it, but the decision to leave is completely solidified—there’s a career waiting for him, better apartments with more to do, and his friends from school are texting that they miss him. It’s the fulfilment of his plans and the realization of a childhood dream to be useful, respected, and known. He can’t find an honest voice in his heart that longs for the theater. He is simply meant to tumble on, leaving behind scabby weeds and this job that affords for nothing.
“Yes I do,” he says, kissing her forehead. She sighs, and they fall asleep intertwined.
He is leaving tomorrow, and neither of them have mentioned it. She’s spent half the shift at his counter, once hearing a cue from the theaters and bolting away to swap reels at the last moment. Her hands are on him, like he needs someone holding the small of his back to pick up bits of plastic wrap and popcorn.
“I got you something,” she says, and he follows her upstairs during a lull. It’s dozens of movies on DVD, which his laptop will play. She holds them up one by one, telling him why she thinks he’ll like each.
He agapes at her, baffled that such a beautiful woman is in his face, talking and laughing. She shifts weight, and her hair cascades.
“What?” she asks. He shakes his head, brushing the question away with a little gesture. She gives him the bag, so full the plastic is stretched. “You have my number,” she says.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says.
She follows him to his car, wearing gumboots for the spring melt. She kisses him. She waves as he drives away, smiling and giggling, walking backward towards the theater. She is still shouting when he rounds the corner and as she slips out of sight, a terrible chill overcomes him.
Watching them load his boxes on the van, he feels as though he’s being disembowled.
“Be careful!” he shouts at them. “Be careful!” as if anything he owns is precious and delicate. He storms in the hotel room, throwing punches at the air and feeling stupid. He picks up his phone to text her and in the same motion grabs it with his other hand and throws it across the room. It lands on the bed without sound. He bites his fist and bends over, a sqeak scraping out.
Driving to the city he cries as hard as he did at his grandmother’s funeral, meandering lanes when he’s alone on the road. His new apartment is high in the clouds, with a pristine view of skyscrapers stretching to fog horizon. He’s got unread messages from her.
The job is great. He knew it would be great. His friends are happy to see him. He knew they would smile and clap his arm, say that he’s done well, and tell him this is exciting. He hears himself agreeing to go get drinks with a woman at the firm next door, and cuts himself off mid sentence, scratching between his eyebrows.
“I actually probably—shouldn’t,” he says.
“No?” she asks, leaning against the elevator mirror. Gorgeous, in heels, foxy. She dives into his eyes, untangles the yarn, and finds his secret with a smirk. “No, good boy. Call me if it doesn’t work out,” she says.
The unread messages are weighing down his phone. Every step, the pocket aches against his thigh. He stops abruptly in the street and pulls it out. Before checking what she’s sent, he types a note and copies it: is it okay if I love you?
He opens the chat.
Bye!
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Bye??? sent a mortifying eleven days ago. He chokes.
I’m sorry, he texts. What else can he say.
She leaves his message unread for days, then reads it and doesn’t respond. He waits a few hours before trying to text again, and actually shrieks when he realizes she blocked him.
He has a pizza delievered to the theater at crack of dawn then tries to text her every few minutes. She does not unblock him, but calls—he hears the chime coming from his desk and bolts mid meeting, mumbling it’s important.
He picks up on the fourth ring, crashing into the stairwell. Immediately, the call begins to fritz out. He bounces up the stairs.
“I’m going to the roof,” he says. Her voice is crackly, the speaker fuzz echoing as cacophany off the concrete. It takes his weight to push open the door; the roof is covered in white pebbles and the glare is blinding. “Are you there?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says. He nods.
“Good,” he says, squatting against the wall. “Good, I—I need to see you again.”
“Why?” she asks.
He twists his lips.
“Uh huh,” she says.
“If you’d asked me to stay I would’ve stayed,” he says.
“I did ask,” she says.
“You just said I could.”
“Okay, well, yeah, but you have things you want to do.”
“But I need to see you.”
The phone is heavy and quiet against his ear. He sucks his teeth, cringing.
“Could I visit you?” she asks.
“Could you—yes,” he says.
“You know, that theater is the only place I’ve ever had sex.”
“Okay, wow—we should… we can change that.”
“Yeah.”
She hangs up. The next day he sends another pizza and she remembers to unblock him.
She leaps into his arms at the airport, kisses him passionately, and throws the suitcase at him. They get icecreams and walk the park. Back at his apartment she critiques the view, saying it makes her nauseous.
“Let’s close the blinds,” he says.
“No, it’s alright,” she says.
They sit on the floor beside the coffee table, eating off a share plate and not talking much. She rests her head on his lap.
“I love you,” he whispers.
She bites her lip, and without opening her eyes, nods vigorously.
“Okay,” he laughs and cries, laying her hair strand by strand.
It is the best week of his life. He stops at the market on his way home and she is waiting to cook with him—mostly sipping wine across the counter as he works.
“Where did you learn?” she asks.
“My grandma,” he says.
“His grandma,” she repeats slowly, smiling.
They watch movies from the collection she put together for him. Most nights they have sex. In the mornings, she wakes up with him and kisses him goodbye at the door. He sends her out with tickets and reservations during the day. They are so happy he can’t face it.
She pouts at the airport, swinging her ponytail back and forth.
“I’m glad I visited,” she says, fixing his coat.
“Anytime,” he says, already aching.
They phone most weeks after that, but it’s not the same. He flies down for a weekend, and after a whirlwind is back on the plane. He feels closest to her not when they’re calling—neither are really good at that, though they will sit on speaker for hours—but watching the films she put together. They are strange and beautiful, like her, and many of them touch him in places he didn’t know existed.
“I’m worried we’re—in different places,” he says one night.
“Uh huh?” she says.
“Is the—is the theater hiring?” he asks, and she laughs.
“No,” she says. “That doesn’t make any sense, I should go to you,” she says.
From then on the possibility hangs in the air, and he fails at not letting it consume his every waking and dreaming thought. He thinks about how they would fit her stuff in the apartment—he plans what to get rid of. He opens a hollow in his chest and fills it with a dreadful, desperate, all-consuming anticipation and desire. If they don’t work out now, he is going to be heartbroken.
She says it casually a few more times, and each time he says something nonchalant, analyzing endlessly the tone of her voice. Does she want him to ask, he wonders? Would that put her off?
“I would be really happy if you were here,” he says, getting bolder. “I love you and I want to see you every day.”
She sighs hard. “I really don’t—want to work at another theater,” she says one night, slowly, like the fact pains her. “But I am a projectionist, you see.”
“And actress, and director,” he says, and she laughs mirthfully, “and don’t forget my girlfriend, so you’ll eat.”
“You understand,” she says. He smiles at his phone.
“You’re so smart, you’ll figure it out,” he says.
She’s quiet. “Uh huh.”
“Do you care about anything besides movies?” he asks, knowing the answer.
She wheezes. “Not really, no.”
“You’ll—you know where to start then,” he says.
“Maybe work on a crew.”
“Yes! Yes that would be so cool.”
“It would be awful, the hours are so bad.”
“You already work twelve hour days.”
“Alone,” she says. Repeating more wistfully, “alone.”
“It would be a big change,” he says.
She texts him very late that evening, after he’s turned the lights off. Why do you think I can make movies?
The question unsettles him. He tries to find an answer in the summation of her parts—her discipline, her knowledge, and her eye—and he can’t grasp the reason why she is who she is.
You make movies, he responds. He watches the bubbles as she types.
I watch movies, she says. And I take care of film.
He says, you can make movies, and sends a video of golden fog.
They work on the details like it’s a joke. They’d sell his car and keep hers. She wants a kitten; that’s fine by him. There’s a school she could attend, and plenty of commercial work, but they don’t need her income to get by.
She’s training a replacement at work. He’s selling furniture. They turn to each other for permission to dream and the dream blossoms.
She gives her notice. He takes time off work to help her pack. They make love beside a stack of boxes on the floor, laughing and crying. They drive past the theater leaving town.
He joins her in the shower.
“You’re home!” she says, smiling and lifting her arms. He hugs her, getting wet, before undressing.
“What are we watching tonight?” he asks, sneaking in with her. She lets him under the water and ruffles his hair as it wets. Their hips brush and she bites her lip, grabbing him and grinding together, getting him hard. Droplets roll down her breasts, which are squished plump against his chest. He laughs from deep in his belly and kisses her forehead. “I do have to actually shower,” he says.
“Why’d you get in with me then,” she says, playfully shoving him away. She steps out and dries off as he cleans quickly. “And why the big rush,” she says, staring at his dick, lasciviously licking her teeth.
“Tease,” he says.
“Bye,” she says, closing the door so the room stays warm. He’s out two minutes later, scouring the apartment, mortifyingly desperate to find her. She’s sitting beside the coffee table in nothing but a t-shirt, adjusting the volume with both hands on the remote. Her legs are spread, and she plays up an innocent batting of her eyes. “You forgot to put on clothes,” she says.
He gets on his hands and knees and crawls over, sticking his face between her legs. She laughs, gently hitting the back of his head. “I want to go down on you,” she says. He sucks her clit and she moans.
“Mhmm?” he asks. She’s holding his head in place.
“Yeah I—yeah,” she says, arching back over the table. He lifts her hips and pushes her up, kneels and grinds against her cunt. She hums merrily, grabbing a condom and wrapping his dick. “Can’t wait though,” she says.
“I last longer second round anyway,” he says, pushing into her. She exhales shakily, reaching for him. He lifts her and hugs her head against his neck, thrusting gently as she entwines them, gently stroking his back and thighs. She moans, and he feels the vibration racing across his skin.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too,” she says, bleary.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, breathless.
“Yeah?”
Her eyes roll back and she shakes her head. He laughs.
“Okay, that was warmup,” he says, pulling out.
She blinks, “Seriously?” but is repositioning on the table, hanging her head off the edge. He watches her, dazed, tossing the condom. She opens her mouth.
He positions over her and strokes her throat with the back of his knuckles. She takes him into her mouth impatiently, sucking on the taste of round one. He rubs her clit, using her own wet for lubrication as his vision speckles. She gags on him, holding him there with an arm around his hips as she swallows repeatedly. He watches her throat fill and empty, transfixed. He wraps a hand around her bobbing and feels himself twitching inside of her, and feels her most subtle moans. She takes him as deep as anatomy will allow.
“That feels good,” he says, stroking her cheek. She coos. “Would you come for me baby?” he asks, massaging her with more pressure.
She cries out, whining, the sound muffled. He speeds up. She does too, bobbing her head roughly and rolling her tongue around his tip at the base of her throat. He comes suddenly, convulsing into her mouth as she moans, holding him there. As soon as he feels himself dry, he pulls out and lifts her head onto the table.
“Aw,” she says. He walks around, licking three fingers, and she smiles at them greedily. “Oh yes.”
He fills her beyond a stretch. Her lips quiver as she adjusts, touching herself gently.
“You’re a star,” he says. She sticks her tongue at him, then bites it, flattered. He grabs her hair, holding her against the table as she thrashes. Her eyes are thick with emotion. He kisses her, and that is what makes her come, and he cannot believe his life.
They eat good food and watch a good movie. She rests her head on his chest and doodles between the freckles on his arm.
“I really love you,” he mumbles, his lips pressed against her ear. She yawns, stretching into him, lifting her arms above her head and ragdolling when he shakes her, overcome with affection. Whatever he thought he needed, he has found in her gentle company and the easy pacing of their days. Without a credits roll, it’s too perfect to feel real.
“I love you too,” she says. She kisses it onto his skin, brushes it into his hair, and sings it for his heart. He believes her. Whatever befalls them, he knows that she will fill the sweetest frames of all his memory and mark the most shining era of his life.